Well, as you know, when I’m trying to make myself feel better, I cook, more often, I bake.

Yesterday I got a wild hair and decided to make crab stuffed mushrooms. Word to the wise, use a lot of spices. They were fabulous! I used cream cheese in the filling, next time though, I’d like to try a different recipe. It was enough for dinner for two nights. So, economical as well.

I then decided I wanted something sweet. Its almost that time of the month and I’ma cravin’. I don’t have a lot of baking goods in my house so I had to choose something that I already had the ingredients for. I finally found a recipe for cinnamon bundt cake. I love cinnamon and it included walnuts, which I like. However, I didn’t have walnuts, so I used pecans, and I love pecans – almost as much as peaches.

And because I’m a little ADD and because I had set things down on the recipe, I kind of missed the fact that the cinnamon/sugar mixture was to go between batter layers and I just added cinnamon to the whole batter. Instead of a cinnamon swirl bundt cake, I have a pecan cinnamon bundt cake.

Its delish. Nate says so as well, and he’s not much of nut eater, and although he likes cinnamon, he doesn’t love cinnamon, but he loves Mama’s bundt cake. I thought that the pecans gave it a nice flavor and he said it gave it a nice crunchiness.

We just had some, warm from the oven, with butter and cold milk. YUM. Nate was also impressed that my bundt didn’t stick and came out PERFECT.

In other news, I talked to Nate’s uncle’s girlfriend today. She had called and left a message wanting our address so she could send Nate a card for his birthday. She had left a message to start with and part of it referenced that they knew what was going on with Jeff and they fully understood.

I guess they would since they’ve lived next door to him for as long as Nate’s been on this Earth. She said they missed Nate and she said, “I always had a good time with Nate. He was never a bit of trouble.” Nate’s very close to their daughter, who is just 18 months younger. I know he spent a lot of time there.

I don’t trust her much. Over 13 years, you learn. I let Nate know that I’d talked to her and gotten his cousin’s cellphone number. He shrugged. Other than his sister, he’s pretty much against anything having to do with the paternal side of his family. His uncle is an alcoholic too, although a different type than Jeff, but still an alcoholic. His other uncle is a drug addict and I don’t know much about the one that lives out of state but I’ve heard he’s an alcoholic too.

There are eight grandchildren in the family (the eldest doesn’t have any children), and none of them have the same mother. Honestly, I always thought that was a little bizarre. Nate is the only one that does not carry his father’ s last name.

Things are probably going to roll by the end of the week. I’ll keep you updated.